| by Dr. Jeffrey Lant. Author's program note. The folks in Newport, Tennessee, (7,242 residents at the time of the 2000 census) are hoping against hope that the old adage about the only bad ink being no ink is true... because their fair metropolis is today the butt of every joke, of sarcasms too nasty and ribald to be printed here, and of enough raised eye-brows to keep barbers worldwide busy as bees for as long as they live. Welcome to Newport. Newport is the kind of place where the movers and shakers gather at their favorite greasy spoon after a long week-end of over eating and epic belches and belt loosening to complain about the injustice that nobody but them knows the virtues of their civic home, sweet home... if only the world and his brother would drop by they'd see for themselves why this dogpatch of 5.4 square miles is a little bit of heaven. Well, the Solons of Newport have now got their fervent wish... and as a result are hiding out under verandas, in attics which are hot as a pistol in August, and in some of the most beautiful and verdant acreage on God's green earth, secret places where the connoisseurs of back yard hootch can so easily find the white lightning, the liquid fortitude, the raw satisfaction that goes down like silk and enlivens even the oldest bones; that was until just the other day their sole claim to fame... but no longer. Now, thanks to a pair of squabbling parents who never met a subject on which they agreed.... a ramrod stiff magistrate whose uptight rectitude and rock ribbed certainties have made even her most avid supporters cringe with embarrassment... and a bouncing baby boy of just seven months with a smile that just won't quit, the Chamber of Commerce got its wish: the great wide world now most assuredly knows Newport... and the truth of this old saw, "Beware of what you ask for, for you may get it." The music. "Running Moonshine on Highway Nine." My, my have I ever found a great tune to accompany this article. It's a wisp of a song titled "Running Moonshine on Highway Nine". You can find it in any search engine and when you do, turn it right on and crank up the toe-tappin' melody. It's a corker of a tune about the bold, fast-moving boys of Appalachia, the smooth talkin', smooth drinkin' sons of the Great Smoky Mountains, kings of the blue highways and the back roads that take you to nirvana, oblivion, and a headache that reminds you the next morning just how good a time you had the night before, and your race with the law; "out of the woods comes a cop named Jackson and he tries to steal my action".... but to no avail. No flat footed ossifer can ever touch these boys, young, cocky, crazy jive-talking, petal pushin' gods of the great ribbon of highway where the 'shine moves like greased lightning and goes down like fire; the law nothing more than an inconvenience, brushed off with cool nonchalance... just the way child support magistrate Lu Ann Ballew handled her now famous (for all the wrong reasons) case in Cocke County Chancery Court. The facts, stipulated, not in dispute. Jaleesa McCullough went to court because she and her husband just couldn't agree on whose surname their now 7-month-old baby Messiah should get. To end an argument that had lost its savor, they sought succor from the law, which turned out to be magistrate Ballew. They expected Ballew to find a way to settle the matter through arbitration, flipping a coin, pulling the solution out of a hat, or maybe using the well-known slicing technique applied by King Solomon himself. But Ballew didn't do this; instead when she saw the name of that sweet baby boy Messiah, she knew as a Christian that wasn't right; that it was an outrage; that she had to do something about it. And so magistrate Ballew, charged by the State of Tennessee to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States promptly took action that outraged that Constitution and defiled the rights of the bickering Martins. The Constitution was explicit, the First Amendment clear: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...." Knowing this as we suppose Ballew did, she nonetheless first thought, then acted thus: Messiah is a religious name earned by only one person, "that one person is Jesus Christ" and that she must heed the higher authority, affronting her oath, her mission, and the great Constitution from which her authority derives. Then she rendered judgement: that the boy Messiah could not have the name his parents gave him, a name already held by hundreds of other boys; further, that having expunged the name given by his parents, she, not they, would provide his new legal name, Martin, thereby well and truly trampling on the parents, who were now the victims of a magistrate who may have meant well but delivered insult, controversy, not to mention a decision with absolutely no basis in law, precedent, logic, or natural right. It short it was nothing more than an ignorant, uninformed, intrusive judicial authority imposing her prejudice on people who sought the benign assistance of the court but instead were hurt, pained, disrespected and offended by it. Thus was a writhing, wiggling, glistening, slithering can of worms opened. If not Messiah, what about Jesus? Once the judge rendered judgement, once the McCulloughs left the courtroom chagrined and dismayed, once the media was alerted to this startling failure to adhere to the Constitution and so render truth, not religious bias, the Associated Press was on the case and the sharp questions began. Your honor, do you believe "Jesus" qualifies as a "suitable" name? Knowing there were legions of honorable men and all-American boys of that name, the magistrate took refuge in silence. And what of Mary, Marie, Maria, all named for the Virgin? And what of Joseph, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and the plethora of other names, all Biblical? All used by millions? The magistrate was now unavailable for further questions. She had gone to ground, silent, anxious, worried, her very judicial appointment now in jeopardy, because she interjected the affairs of God into the rights of citizens. The matter will, of course, be appealed; both McCulloughs agree on this if nothing else. The magistrate, having erred so greatly, will be overruled and cold shouldered even by those who concur with her outrageous position. Tennessseans, you see, like winners and that magistrate Ballew most assuredly is not. As for the citizens of Newport, they should stick to 'shine. There their skills are unequalled and their product sublime. |
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